Norway Chess R7: Giri Blunders, Loses to Karjakin

The seventh round of the Norway Chess tournament saw just one decisive game: Anish Giri was an Exchange up for a long time against Sergey Karjakin but blundered terribly on move 131 (!) and had to resign immediately. Karjakin has joined Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Vladimir Kramnik in first place, with two rounds to go which will be played on Thursday and Friday.

It's arguably the worst way of losing: trying hard for hours and hours to win a better, possibly winning position but then blundering the game away. This is what happened to Anish Giri on Tuesday in Norway; if anyone would never lose this game it was the Dutchman, but it happened anyway, after many hours of play, and after the official commentary had already finished.

In a Symmetrical English not much was going on for a long time, but Giri was better and eventually won an Exchange on move 75. Lots of shuffling followed, but he did make progress and finally he reached a winning position. Update: as Henk Jonker emailed us, it's not so clear actually. See the game annotations. But then he didn't see the right queen maneuver that would have allowed him to activate his rook, and it must have been tiredness what happened at the end. Such a shame!

A terrible blunder

This was in fact one of four games that took longer than five and a half hours!

Carlsen gave Grischuk an unpleasant afternoon in a Grünfeld, where the ending is supposed to be theoretically OK for Black, but not in this game. After 26 moves Grischuk had all his pieces on the first rank and a bad pawn structure. He said: “If I had Instagram I would put this position from Black's point of view and hashtag #excitingchess.”

Even when he gets quite far in a quiet ending like that, Carlsen can be critical of himself: “I'm not sure there was a win but I could have done better.” About the tournament situation he said: “Everything has been going the right way for me the last couple of rounds, not necessarily in terms of my play but in terms of other results so. Normally with plus one it would have been, now it was not. Certainly I hoped to win because I had a very pleasant position.”

Kramnik came close to a win, but Aronian found a miraculous escape: just when the Russian felt he was going to score a full point, his opponent played a combination that led to perpetual check, and it was correct in every line. Splended defense!

Caruana got into trouble against Topalov in a very theoretical line of the Sicilian, English Attack. Caruana: “I was probably completely lost. I couldn't remember anything.” Topalov: “Actually I'm not sure it's possible to remember.”

Amazingly, Agdestein keeps on drawing his games after getting excellent positions. Svidler had looked at his French Defense the night before, starting at 11pm and thinking, at 3 am, “I really should get some sleep!” By then, and also the next morning, the Russian grandmaster hadn't succeeded in finding anything against it. “It started as fun but it was an incredibly depressing experience.” Agdestein: “It's a bit like the Berlin Defense.”

And so Svidler went for a Réti, but that didn't go according to plan either. Agdestein was simply better after the opening, but was happy to repeat moves when Svidler did so. “An easy day at the office,” the Norwegian said.

And so, with two rounds to go, there is a four-way tie for first place. Topalov commented: “I am dreaming of sharing the first to the last place.”

Norway Chess 2014 | Pairings & Results

Round 1

03.06.14

15:30 CET

Round 2

04.06.14

15:30 CET

Aronian

½-½

Agdestein

Aronian

1-0

Karjakin

Karjakin

½-½

Topalov

Kramnik

½-½

Carlsen

Grischuk

0-1

Caruana

Caruana

1-0

Svidler

Carlsen

½-½

Giri

Topalov

0-1

Grischuk

Svidler

½-½

Kramnik

Agdestein

½-½

Giri

Round 3

05.06.14

15:30 CET

Round 4

07.06.14

15:30 CET

Karjakin

½-½

Agdestein

Aronian

½-½

Svidler

Grischuk

1-0

Aronian

Karjakin

1-0

Grischuk

Svidler

½-½

Topalov

Caruana

½-½

Giri

Carlsen

½-½

Caruana

Topalov

½-½

Carlsen

Giri

0-1

Kramnik

Agdestein

½-½

Kramnik

Round 5

08.06.14

15:30 CET

Round 6

09.06.14

15:30 CET

Grischuk

½-½

Agdestein

Aronian

½-½

Giri

Svidler

½-½

Karjakin

Karjakin

½-½

Carlsen

Carlsen

1-0

Aronian

Grischuk

½-½

Svidler

Giri

1-0

Topalov

Topalov

1-0

Kramnik

Kramnik

1-0

Caruana

Agdestein

½-½

Caruana

Round 7

10.06.14

15:30 CET

Round 8

12.06.14

15:30 CET

Svidler

½-½

Agdestein

Aronian

-

Caruana

Carlsen

½-½

Grischuk

Karjakin

-

Kramnik

Giri

0-1

Karjakin

Grischuk

-

Giri

Kramnik

½-½

Aronian

Svidler

-

Carlsen

Caruana

½-½

Topalov

Agdestein

-

Topalov

Round 9

13.06.14

14:30 CET

Carlsen

-

Agdestein

Giri

-

Svidler

Kramnik

-

Grischuk

Caruana

-

Karjakin

Topalov

-

Aronian

Norway Chess 2014 | Round 7 Standings

#

Name

Rtg

Perf

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

0

Pts

SB

1

Carlsen,Magnus

2881

2833

½

½

½

½

½

1

½

4.0/7

13.75

2

Kramnik,Vladimir

2783

2820

½

1

½

0

½

½

1

4.0/7

13.75

3

Caruana,Fabiano

2791

2815

½

0

½

1

½

1

½

4.0/7

13.25

4

Karjakin,Sergey

2771

2820

½

½

1

½

0

½

1

4.0/7

13.25

5

Agdestein,Simen

2628

2779

½

½

½

½

½

½

½

3.5/7

12.25

6

Grischuk,Alexander

2792

2773

½

0

0

½

1

1

½

3.5/7

11.25

7

Topalov,Veselin

2772

2740

½

1

½

½

0

½

0

3.0/7

11.50

8

Aronian,Levon

2815

2716

0

½

1

½

0

½

½

3.0/7

10.75

9

Svidler,Peter

2753

2715

½

0

½

½

½

½

½

3.0/7

10.50

10

Giri,Anish

2752

2728

½

0

½

0

½

1

½

3.0/7

10.25

The Norway Chess tournament runs 2-13 June in the Stavanger region. All photos courtesy of the official website | Games via TWIC

Commenti

Excellent game by Giri and Karjakin. Too bad Giri lost it, but it does not matter. He had the right idea. In addition, both had very little time on the clock. And the position warranted a little think, especially for the attacker, so that certainly contributed in addition to the long hours.

But whatever the result, Giri can be proud of this game. Now he is probably a bit sour about it, but after the tourney he will come to this conclusion. Bravo, well done!

If Nakamura will be playing in this tournament Carlsen will have a +1 advantage. So I'm happy that Nakamura did not played in this tournament, he always loses against Carlsen even when he has a clear advantage. This makes it easy for Carlsen to win tournaments where Nakamura plays. Just remember the last tournament where Nakamura lost twice vs Carlsen.

If Nakamura will be playing in this tournament Carlsen will have a +1 advantage. So I'm happy that Nakamura did not played in this tournament, he always loses against Carlsen even when he has a clear advantage. This makes it easy for Carlsen to win tournaments where Nakamura plays. Just remember the last tournament where Nakamura lost twice vs Carlsen.

Out of curiosity, just checked to see if it's theoretically possible if all of the participants could possibly tie one another for first through last place. It's not - Karjakin is playing Caruana and Kramnik in his last two games, so it isn't possible for all three players to get 0.5 points out of their last two.

But, seriously, I don't remember the last round robin I've seen where it was this close from first to last.

Evidently the "round robin syndrome" (RRS) is gradually affecting the participants. The round robin syndrome induces chess fatigue in long tourneys. It is a testament to the competitiveness of the games that it occurs after only 7 rounds.

As such, anything can (and usually does) happen. Extraordinarily fitting in this case since everyone still has a mathematical possibility of winning.

Grischuk played a fantastic game and had to defend tenaciously against a player whose trademark is to fight on in positions where many would accept the draw. Agdestein has been the surprise of the tourney thus far, it would be nice to see him complete without losing.Really enjoyed the line Svidler played in the KIA against him.

Would like to see Caruana win this...he has had a great tourney aside from his momentary lapse against Kramnik.

The Perf rating of Agedestein does not mean that he will be rated 2779 after the tournament, though he will gain a substantial amount of points. It basically means that for a 50% score against this playing field, they estimate his rating (only for this tournament) at 2779. To say it differently, a player rated at 2779 would be expected to have a 50% score against this field and therefore, a 50% score equates to such a performance rating

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